CROSSING A DAWN (China 2026) *
Directed by Badoun Zhau
This Chinese romantic comedy, CROSSING A DAWN, has several things going for it. Firstly, it is a first-love romance where the meeting is a bit awkward. It is not love at first sight. The two are young teens, and so, meeting another involves all the modern gadgets like cell phones, influencers and dating or meeting apps.
Played by Ma Sichun, Xu Qiu is portrayed as a daring, emotionally guarded young designer living in Beijing. She initially appears confident and independent, but beneath that surface is someone exhausted by modern urban relationships and uncertain about where her life is heading.
Xu Qiu is on a date when she unexpectedly encounters Chen Yuzhou. Rather than fitting the stereotype of a romantic heroine who immediately opens up emotionally, she is cautious and somewhat restless. The film suggests that she has built emotional defences after disappointments in love and work. Throughout the night, she oscillates between flirtation, skepticism, and vulnerability.
Her personality is defined by contradiction: outwardly sophisticated but inwardly lonely,
playful yet deeply introspective, independent but secretly longing for emotional connection.
The romance is told from the female point of view. The female in this case is not perfect. She is desperate to get a date, smokes and steals a bicycle without any guilt. A film. However, one should not condone bad behaviour like stealing and smoking, unless the film is meant to be a hard, bad ass movie. The guy is charming and a pretty boy with a good body, who seems more innocent than the badass girl. They go through the night, getting to know each other till the break of dawn.
Though light-hearted in nature, director Zhao’s film is quite a serious feature.
The film is set over one night till dawn, and hence the title, during which a single woman and a single man experience a series of unique urban encounters that slowly become an unexpected date. Filled with self-reflection and introspection about the future, they must decide if what they want is something deeper -- or something fleeting. The film uses Beijing’s nighttime streets, bars, and waterfronts almost as reflections of her emotional state — vibrant but isolating. Xu Qiu often drives the emotional rhythm of conversations, testing Chen Yuzhou with teasing remarks, sudden honesty, and moments of silence.
Though hardly known to North American audiences, the director Badou Zhao is a graduate of the prestigious Beijing Film Academy. Badou Zhao makes his feature directorial debut with CROSSING A DAWN (JIN WAN ZHEN HAO). He wrote and directed the 2022 short film TRUTHLESS, which explores complex personal identities; he previously received honours for the short film OVERTONES at both the London Short Film Festival and the Worldfest-Houston International Film Festival. Born in the Chinese province of Guangdong, his screenwriting credits include THE FUTURE HANDBOOK and LOVE IN A LOOP.
The film opens in select theatres throughout Canada & the United States on May 29th, including Toronto-area cinemas.
Trailer:
DEPARTURES (UK 2025) ***
Directed by Neil ElyLloyd Eyre-Morgan
When gay films first showed up on the radar, there were so many themes not yet covered. Themes like coming out, doing tricks, AIDs, bath houses, social unacceptance, and first gay love were explored for the first time. The new theme has run out with new ideas on the gay scene coming up scarce, so filmmakers have to come up with new nuances and ideas. DEPARTURES show frequent gay meetings of a gay Brit couple in Amsterdam with largely beefy gay men instead of clubby slim good-looking twinks.
DEPARTURES is a British LGBTQ+ drama film centring on emotionally damaged men trying to navigate love, sex, self-worth, and identity in contemporary gay culture. The characters are intentionally messy, vulnerable, and psychologically layered rather than idealised romantic figures.
The two main characters are Benji (Lloyd Eyre-Morgan) and Jake (DzvinTag).
Benji is the emotional core of the film. He is a gay man in his thirties from Manchester who desperately wants intimacy and emotional connection but repeatedly sabotages himself through insecurity, dependency, and self-destructive behaviour. He is witty, self-aware, emotionally needy, and often painfully funny in the way he narrates his own suffering. The film presents much of the story through his memories and inner monologue, making him both sympathetic and unreliable. He is shown to be emotionally raw and vulnerable.
Physically, Benji is not portrayed as the stereotypical “perfect” gay leading man. His anxieties about body image and desirability become major themes in the film. He often uses humour, partying, sex, and drugs to mask loneliness and rejection. The story explores his fear of abandonment, low self-esteem, addiction tendencies, and his longing for genuine love. Benji’s emotional spiral after his breakup drives much of the narrative. The film begins with his breakup
Jake is the charismatic but emotionally unavailable man with whom Benji becomes obsessed. He is physically attractive, masculine, sexually confident, and difficult to fully understand. The relationship begins after they meet at an airport and start taking secret monthly trips to Amsterdam together. Jake initially appears exciting and liberating to Benji, but gradually becomes emotionally distant and manipulative. Jake embodies several themes the film critiques:
toxic masculinity, fear of vulnerability, compartmentalised sexuality, and emotionally transactional relationships. He is shown to be living a “double life,” suggesting internalised shame and unresolved identity conflicts. He is neither villain nor hero. The film presents him as another damaged person who cannot give Benji the emotional safety he needs.
Other characters include Rya, Robbie, Kieran and Venessa, with the most interesting one being his Aunt Janet (Lorraine Stanley), who brings her client to Benji’s home, not to mention her stealing and selling Benji’s dog Banjo and selling it for 40 quid. She loves Benji deeply but has difficulty expressing emotional understanding in modern language. She also carries trauma from domestic abuse and guilt connected to Benji’s childhood. Janet represents generational tension: older attitudes toward homosexuality, working-class survival mentality, and imperfect but genuine maternal love. Stanley steals every scene she appears in,
The film, which has received, at the time of writing, 95% approval on Rotten Tomatoes, succeeds in its emotional honesty, subtle and dark humour and raw depiction of toxic gay relationships. The strong performances by Lloyd Eyre-Morgan and David Tag help as well.
DEPARTURES from Filmwelike opens in theatres May 22nd and is worth a look.
Trailer:
